The growing secrecy adopted by death penalty states to hide the
source of their lethal injection drugs used in executions is being
challenged in a new lawsuit in Missouri, which argues that the American
people have a right to know how the ultimate punishment is being carried
out in their name.

The legal challenge,
brought by the Guardian, Associated Press and the three largest
Missouri newspapers, calls on state judges to intervene to put a stop to
the creeping secrecy that has taken hold in the state in common with
many other death penalty jurisdictions. The lawsuit argues that under
the first amendment of the US constitution the public has a right of
access to know “the type, quality and source of drugs used by a state to
execute an individual in the name of the people”.